SFA president brands pyro wielding fans CRIMINALS and wants them banned as club pleas are ignored

Mike Mulraney has called on the authorities to ban pyro-wielding yobs from all Scottish football grounds and insisted they must be treated like criminals.

The SFA president came out with all guns blazing after Sunday’s League Cup Final clash between Celtic and Rangers became the latest in a line of big-match fixtures to be blighted by smoke bombs and fireworks in the stands. As was the case in both club’s semi-finals, kick-off had to be delayed and the chaos unfolded despite the Old Firm pleading with their own supporters not to break the law.

There were also shocking scenes in Glasgow city centre earlier in the day when groups of rival fans clashed in front of terrified Christmas shoppers. And Mulraney believes it’s now time for a zero-tolerance approach to be adopted. Asked about the latest pyrotechnic breaches he refused to rule out imposing a possible ticket ban on clubs with repeat offenders.

But he said: “There’s one critical thing we have to remember – it’s a crime. Everybody is losing focus on the fact it is a crime and that we have legislation to deal with it being a crime.

“It doesn’t matter how much the chief executive of the SFA or a club says, ‘Please don’t do that!’. It’s self-evident these messages are having no impact.

“What does have an impact is if you use the tools currently afforded to us. We have a piece of legislation which allows for football banning orders.

“We need to ban them out of our game. They are criminals, they are not fans. They might call themselves fans but they are criminals. Last year we had one football banning order. One!

“I’m getting asked, ‘What are you doing about it?’. And I’m saying, ‘We will work with anybody to have a positive impact on society and to make sure people are